Amanda Knox awaits jury's verdict

Last Updated at 2:13 p.m. ET

PERUGIA, Italy - Amanda Knox tearfully told an Italian appeals court Monday she did not kill her British roommate, pleading for the court to free her so she can return to the United States after four years behind bars. The court began deliberations moments later.

According to the court, a verdict is expected at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT).

Knox frequently paused for breath and fought back tears as she spoke in Italian to the six members of the jury and two judges in a packed courtroom, but managed to maintain her composure during the 10-minute address.

"I've lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible," she said of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old Briton who shared an apartment with Knox when they were both students in Perugia. "I'm paying with my life for things that I didn't do."

Timeline of the Amanda Knox case
Video exclusive: Knox tells the judge her story
Complete coverage: Amanda Knox murder appeal

The highly-anticipated verdict, with Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann presiding, will be broadcast live.

On Monday morning, hundreds of reporters and cameras filled the underground, frescoed courtroom before Knox's address. Outside, police cordoned off the entrance to the tribunal.

As she waits, Knox was relaxing in the prison chapel, playing guitar and singing, according to an Italian lawmaker who visited her in prison Monday.

"These are obviously the most difficult hours," Rocco Girlanda, who has spearheaded a campaign in Italy in support of Knox, told The Associated Press. "The time never seems to pass."

Knox and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito were convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher, who was stabbed to death in her bedroom. She was found in a pool of blood and covered by a duvet the following day.

Complete coverage of the Amanda Knox case from Crimesider

Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25. Also convicted in separate proceedings was Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivorian man. They all deny wrongdoing.

"She had her bedroom next to mine, she was killed in our own apartment. If I had been there that night, I would be dead," Knox said. "But I was not there."

"I did not kill. I did not rape. I did not steal. I wasn't there. I wasn't there at the crime," Knox said.

"48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports that Knox appealed to the jury - members of which wept openly during her statement - to reverse the conviction and let her return home.

"I insist I'm innocent and that must be defended. I just want to go home, go back to my life," she told the court through tears.

Van Sant says Knox's words brought tears even to the eyes of some journalists in the room.

12 Photos

Amanda Knox: The appeal ends

Minutes before, an anxious Sollecito also addressed the court to proclaim his innocence and plead for his release from prison.

"I never hurt anyone, never in my life," Sollecito said, shifting as he spoke and stopping to sip water. He said at the time of the murder he was in a great period of his life, close to defending his thesis to graduate from university and having just met Knox.

The weekend Kercher was murdered was the first the pair planned to spend together "in tenderness and cuddles," he said.

At the end of his 17-minute address, Sollecito took off a white rubber bracelet emblazoned with "Free Amanda and Raffaele" that he said he was been wearing for four years.

15 Photos

Amanda Knox personal photos

"I have never taken it off. Many emotions are concentrated in this bracelet," he said. "Now I want to pay homage to the court. The moment to take it off has arrived."

The Kerchers have arrived in a Perugia hotel and are expected to be in court for the verdict.

Speaking this morning, Stephanie Kercher said her sister "has been most forgotten" in the media circus surrounding the high-profile trial.

"As long as they decide today based purely on the information available to them and they don't look into the media hype, I think justice will be found," she told reporters.

Kercher family doesn't want victim forgotten

[tibu987]

I apologize for incorrectly using the name of Meredith Kercher's sister Stephanie.
A senior moment.
Meredith is the only victim and my sympathy to her family.
Will we ever know the truth?
Why, if Rudy G is the only one charged, were Knox and her boyfriend accused?
Something smells here.
Political solution, perhaps?

[tibu987]

So, if Amanda Knox and her boyfriend are innocent, who killed Meredith Kercher? Meredith is the victim, not Knox and her boyfriend..

[fusje]

His name is Rudy Guede and he is already in jail.

[Overruled1]

As I type this post, Amanda Knox is walking into the courtroom.
The verdict is about to be announced.
Weird to see a religious ornament in a court room, but this is Italy.
A cross is behind the judge in the chamber.
I imagine Amanda understands Italian better since I don't see any translator around.
Amanda is crying already.
Rafeale is talking to her.
She is calm now.
The announcement, yada, yada, yada...to be freed, but with dubious circumstances...I think they wanted something to give the justice system some sort of believability.

My advice, get her on a plane today....anywhere but Italy.

[tibu987]

How can anyone know if Knox is innocent or guilty?
Someone killed that young lady in a most gruesome way.
As the family of Stephanie Kercher said, the real victim, Stephanie, is forgotten. Remember that, Stephanie is the victim, not Knox.
In the above article, Stephanie's name is barely even mentioned.
As Knox would just like to go home, so must the Kerchers want their daughter and sister Stephanie to return home.
I would think that Knox would stay in jail until, another person who did the murder is caught.
Somebody killed this young lady.

[Overruled1]

Have you not followed the trail?
The DNA was Rudy all over the crime scene, nobody can only clean one persons' DNA and not clean another person's DNA while cleaning the crime scene.
Rudy implicated them to get 1/2 off his sentance.

[IamTHEWIND8]

First of all if you followed the trial at all aside from this moment, you would know Merideth Kurtcher and not Stephanie is the victim, Stephanie is her sister. Not only that you would also know that they have convicted a monster of this crime. This persons(Rudy)DNA was all over Miss Kurtcher and the crime scene and his was the ONLY DNA on the victim. In a plea deal he made to lesson the sentence Rudy was facing he indicated Amanda and Rafaele. The Italain police had a very young girl not only away from home but away from home in another country who spoke very little Italian and they twisted scenarios and confused her and made her feel defeated and desperate and like most kids facing trouble regardless of the severity of it she started stumbling over her words, and not only that she had been experimenting in pot as well as sexually which shamed her to have to speak out loud. She was held until extreme exhaustion and confusion took over and then they twited her words and made a case. Yet there's not a way to clean only one persons DNA from any crime scence let alone this type of crime and this level of gruesomeness! They built the case on the words of the ONLY man who's DNA showed up who could ONLY gain by implicating an accomplice, and they justified it by stating that due to Merideth Kurtchers lack of injuries it showed very little signs of struggle so there HAD to be more than one person to subdue her. Not all victims can or do struggle, not saying that she was killed due to her not fighting because I wasn't there I don't know how much or little Mereditch Kurtcher fought but a lack of defensive wounds could simply mean she didn't fight back physically maybe in the hopes that it would save her life? HOWEVER they do have the right person in jail and not only was his DNA all over the crime scene his was the ONLY DNA all over the crime scene, the rest is circumstantial and based soley on the implication made by Rudy that Amanda Knox and Rafaele were involved and the police running with that theory and harassing a young girl in a completely different country that barely understood or spoke the language! This same young girl Amanda Knox isn't going home, that young girl was taken from her and her family, maybe not in the same way Meredith Kurtcher was taken from hers but nonetheless she was still taken and now she's a young woman who's been through a traumatic, horrifying experience! She was also a victim, not who lost her life but who she lost her friend and roommate, her freedom and any ounce of innocence she might have had left. She has a chance at a new life now and I hope she is able to do so and heal from this and I hope that Meredith Kurtcher's family can also finally have some peace and that their daughter/sister can rest in peace and that her family as well as the family of Amanda Knox and Rafaele can move forward from this moment and that the healing process is as kind to each of them as it can be.

[MsAndraste]

Read "The Monster of Florence" - prosecutor Mignini has been down this road before. In the case of those serial murders, he repeatedly imprisoned different suspects, accused them of Satanic practices, only to be forced to release when the murderer struck again. He is deranged and incompetent and should be removed from his post. This whole thing ought to embarrass the Italians, who are at a cultural nadir. The Catholic Church (glass house?) very publically spanked Italian leadership last week for moral laxity This Madonna/***** fixation...square that with the fact that, if a woman provides sexual favors for Berlusconi, she is appointed to political sinecures. A horrible place to be a woman - completely retrograde, misogynist & xenophobic environment. Nothing will change until women are DEMAND and are accorded respect. The creative and intellectual class in Italy - at the very least - has to agitate for a change in the culture. This miscarriage of justice couldn't have happened in an enlightened social milieu.

[helmyelsaid]

Final jurors verdict.

[hazaltop]

CCTV footage shows Knox and Sollecito shopping for bleach and cleaning products in the early hours of the morning following the gruesome murder of Meredith Kercher. The couple staged a break-in. Knox attempted to incriminate an innocent man. The absence of emotion displayed towards the victim, the family and the friends of the victim, in the aftermath of the crime, the kissing and fondling to the cameras, the cartwheels in the jailhouse, the giggling and smiling, some of many indictors that Knox and Sollecito were relishing their roles as murder suspects. Who needs DNA when it's hard to conceive of guilt more stark?

[dpb1003]

this poor girl should be released straight away anyone who knows anything to do with the case would say that,imagine waking this poor girl up at 3am in her prison cell to tell her that she has contracted HIV,and to write everyone shes ever slept with so they can contact the men too all in an effort to smear her image when they released a dr patient list all in an effort of changing the itialian publics minds being a chatolic country and it worked being from ireland myself and it being the same its very easy to change public perception when you mention sex,just look at the evidence there isnt any they collected the bra clasp with the supposed dna evidence 6 weeks after the murder,all without hair caps and some not even wearing gloves,what more does it take just watch the latest episode of 20/20 and see what the prosicuter tried to pin on a american and a local before this case a host of serial killings that where never solved the beast of venice,i admit amanda acted a bit strange but tell me who wouldnt when youve realised if you hadnt slept in your boyfriends you more than likely would be dead too.im from ireland and id love nothing more than to catch the murderer or murderers but not at the sake of inniocent people

[mooring7]

Somebody is murdered... somebody must pay...........The control of society is based upon the goverment finding the killer of a murder victim. It brings order to chaos and prevents a vigilante
mentality from developing and a lynch mob hunting for suspects without proof of guilt. Revenge is in the hands of the government and not the angry mob. At the end of the day the government of Italy has assured its people that the diabolical, she devil that murdered her roomate during a "satanic drug induced sexual ritual orgy". Just look at the contribution Amanda Knox is giving to the Italian people and it's goverment. Only one problem Its all a fabrication created in the mind of the prosecutor, and its what the jury wants to believe.Nevermind the evidence and or the lack of evidence its the outrageous commentary that counts.